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July 16, 2007

Ancestor Cards for Children

Recently I've been mulling over how to present the genealogy I've done on our family so that it would grab my 9 year old grandson's attention. My good friend Illya of Genealogy Today suggested I use a baseball or hockey card format with one ancestor per card.

I loved the idea and created cards 6 cm x 9 cm. Each card features one ancestor's picture or a picture representing that ancestor. The back of each card has ancestor stats - their relationship to my grandchildren, date and place of birth, date and place of death, spouse's name, parents' names and a tiny blurb about that person (hopefully something unique or of interest to an 9 year old!)

After laminating the cards, I presented them to my grandson and granddaughter (who is 7) when they came for their annual summer week long holiday with us. They loved them and not only read every bit of information about each ancestor, they began figuring out who was the oldest ancestor.... who died at the oldest age... who died at the youngest age... which parents went with which ancestor.. and so on.

Then they decided to play a game, which we called simply "Ancestor Game". They each chose an ancestor card and played it, with whoever had the furthest back ancestor winning both cards. The next day they begged me to make more cards!! I now have 48 cards made for them with many more to go. To add even more interest I also created cards that were not direct ancestors, but had some small claim to fame or something historical or interesting to a child. Thank goodness for my Family Tree Maker Genealogy Program which tells me if a person is a 3rd cousin 5x removed or something else!

We decided I should also make double cards wherever possible, that is, two cards for one ancestor but with different photos or representative pictures on each one. Then they can play "Go Fish for Ancestors".

It was a genealogist's dream come true - for 5 days they asked for "more ancestor stories please Grandma!" and "Can you make us more Ancestor Cards?" When their mom called to see how they were doing, the first words out of my grandson's mouth were "Mom, you won't believe about one of our ancestors!" and he proceeded to quote from the Ancestor Cards.

I thought I'd like to share this in case you are looking for something to capture your little one's interest, because it was fabulous and my grandchildren loved it!

18 comments:

What a great idea. I'm getting ready to be "the speaker" at family reunion, and I was worried that the kids would be restless. Making some handouts for the kids in the form of ancestor cards will be just the ticket.

What a wonderful idea! You are terrific. This needs to be shared with lots of enthusiasts with the same generation gaps. I'll pass this along and certainly try it with my family.Thanks for sharing!!!cbm

Do you remember the game "Guess Who"? Two players each have a frame with 24 pictures of faces. Each player asks questions to try to figure out which person the other player is. "Are you wearing a hat?" "Do you have blue eyes?" And they flip down the people who can't be the one they are trying to find. I changed the pictures from cartoons to family members. "Did you attend BYU?" "Were you born in Alabama?" Great fun!!

This is a great idea, and might actually get my middle child interested in our family history. I also like the Guess Who? mentioned by The Grandmother Here.

I think when I make these for Go Fish, or any other use, I will have one set with a picture of my ancestors at a young age with the second set having pictures with them at an older age. Lots of possibilites.

Greatest idea I've gotten from Pinterest yet! I love it! Always trying to think of something to do with the little ones, and like some of the others, this sounds like a great idea for the summer family reunion. But the best thing is getting them interested in their ancestors.

Wonderful idea!! I'm definately going to do this. But I think it's a wonderful idea for adults too. I have many people in my family that are interested in our family genealogy. However, when you hand them a stack of papers full of charts and trees their eyes glaze over and they lose interest. Grab their interest right away with pictures and the most interesting people or stories in your family. Like the civil war ancestor I found who was runover by a train picking strawberries. Or the cousin I found who was a gangster and died in a machine gun shootout (after he attempted to kill the local KKK leader). Or the ancestor who was over 300lbs. Grab their attention and reel them in! Thanks for the idea.

I love this and want to try it with my great niece and nephews, however, I am having some trouble visualizing how to play the "match" game or "go fish" if the picture is on one side and the information is on the other side like a baseball card. If you put both on one side, then the printing is too small for the younger ones to understand. Any suggestions for someone who is creatively challenged?

For Go Fish and Match game everything is on one side.The printed info is very limited (as you noted) with Name of ancestor, plus year of birth and death and locations if you want to add those.

If it is your grandchildren playing you could add the relationship - such as "2nd great grandmother" That of course changes if you have young children and they are the ones playing the game. It then becomes "Great Grandmother"

I'm an incurable collector of
antiques, an avid genealogist and a messy but creative cook! I blog, i write history and genealogy books. My main genealogy website is Olive Tree Genealogy http://olivetreegenealogy.com/